Factual Information on Seven Eleven Japan (SEJ)

Established in 1974.

The largest convenience store in Japan with value of $95 B.
– The third largest retail company in the world after Wal-Mart and Home
Depot.

In 1985, there were 2000 stores in Japan. Since then, increasing
by 400-500 per year.

In 2000, total sales $18,000 M, profit $620 M.
– Stock value increased by 3000 times from 1974 to 2000.
– Return on equity 14% over 2000-2004.

Average inventory turnover time 7-8.5 days.
– 7-eleven annual inventory turnover rate is 50 in Japan (19 in the U.S.A.)
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Number of Stores: 10356 in 2004.
Net Sales: 1,963 B Yen in 2000.
6000
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Number of Stores
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Net Sales
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85
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Profit
8
Inventory
6
4
2
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85
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87
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Individual store and Products
A
SEJ store is about the half the size of a US 7-eleven
store, that is about 110 m2 =1000 square feet.
 Sales:
– Products
» 32.9% Processed food: drinks, noodles, bread and snacks
» 31.6% Fast food: rice ball, box lunch and hamburgers
» 12.0% Fresh food: dairy products
» 25.3% Non-food: magazines, ladies stockings and batteries.
– Services: Utility bill paying, installment payments for credit companies,
ATMs, photocopying
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More on SEJ
More factual info:
 Average sales about twice of an average US store
 SKU’s offered in store: Over 3,000 (change by time of day, day of week,
season)
 Virtually no storage space
 No food cooking at the stores
Japanese Images of Seven Eleven:




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Convenient
Cheerful and lively stores
Many ready made dinner items I buy
Famous for its great boxed lunch and dinner
“- On weekends, when I was single, I went to buy lunch and dinner”
SC strategy:
Micro matching of supply and demand (by location, time of day, day of week, season)
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Information Strategy
Quick access to up-to-date information as opposed to data

In 1991, SEJ implemented Integrated Service Digital Network to link stores,
headquarter, DCs and suppliers

Customer checkout process
– Clerk records the customer’s gender, (estimated) age and purchased items. These
Point of Sales (POS) data are transmitted to database at the headquarters.
» Store hardware: Store computer, POS registers linked to store computer, Graphic
Order Terminals, Scanner terminals for receiving

Daily use of the data
– Headquarters aggregate the data by region, products and time and pass to suppliers
and stores by next morning. Store managers deduce trend information.

Weekly use of the data
– Monday morning, the CEO chairs a weekly strategy formulation meeting attended by
100 corporate managers.
– Tuesday morning, strategies are communicated to Operation Field Counselors who
arrive in Tokyo on Monday night.
– Tuesday afternoon, regional elements (e.g. weather, sport events) are factored into the
strategy. Tuesday nights, field counselors return back to their regions.
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Information Analysis of POS Data

Analysis of
–
–
–
–
Sales for product categories over time
SKU (stock keeping unit)
Waste or disposal
10 day (or week) sales trend by SKU

Sales trends for new product
– In the early 1990s, half-prepared fresh noodle sales were going up,
new fresh noodle products were quickly developed

Sales trend by time and day
– Different sales patterns for different sizes of milk at different times of the day results in
rearrangement of the milks in the fridge. Extreme store micromanagement.
» Let us speculate: Flavored milks are put in front of the pure milks in the evening (or the morning?).

List of slow moving items
– About half of 3000 SKUs are replaced by new ones every year
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Facilities Strategy

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Limited storage space at stores which have at most 125-150 m2 space
– Frequent and small deliveries to stores
Deliveries arrive from over 200 plants.
Products are grouped by the cooling needs
– Combined delivery system: frozen foods, chilled foods, room temperature and hot foods.
– Such product groups are cross-docked at distribution centers (DC). Food DCs store no
inventory.
– A single truck brings a group of products and visits several stores within a geographical region
– Aggregation: No supplier (not even coke!) delivers direct


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The number of truck deliveries per day is reduced by a factor of 7 from 1974 to 2000.
Still, at least 3 fresh food deliveries per day. Goods are received faster with the use of
scanners.
Have many outlets, at convenient locations, close to where customers can walk
Focus on some territories, not all: When they locate in a place they blanket (a.k.a.
clustering) the area with stores; stores open in clusters with corresponding DC’s.
– 844 stores in the Tokyo region; Seven Eleven had stores in 32 out of 47 prefectures in 2004. No
stores in Kobe.
– Success rate of franchise application <= 1/100
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The Present and the Future

Point out which of the following strategies can also be used in US (or in
Taiwan)
– Information strategy
– Facilities strategy
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
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
Why SEJ does not allow direct delivery from suppliers to retailers?
No direct deliveries to SEJ, what is the potential risk of this strategy if
used in the USA?
What, if any, is the risk of micro-matching strategy?
Discuss the differences between the Japanese and US (or Taiwanese)
consumers with regard to
– Frequency and amount of grocery purchase
– Use of credit cards vs. cash for purchase
– 7-eleven inventory turnover rate is 50 in Japan and 19 in the USA
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Summary
 Appropriately
designed information and facility
strategies can greatly improve the performance
– supply chain
– financial
 The
same strategy can be appropriate or not
depending on the business environment: population density,
consumer choices, local culture, infrastructure, macroeconomic factors.
– Hence, benchmark carefully.
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